State water managers have granted the owners of Adena Springs Ranch additional time to finalize their application for one of the most controversial water-consumption permits in recent memory.

By Bill ThompsonStaff writer

State water managers have granted the owners of Adena Springs Ranch additional time to finalize their application for one of the most controversial water-consumption permits in recent memory.

Last week, hydrologists at the St. Johns River Water Management District gave engineers working on the project — a proposed withdrawal of 5.3 million gallons of water a day for a sprawling cattle ranch near Fort McCoy — until Dec. 14 to answer some lingering questions.

Honey Rand, spokeswoman for Adena Springs, said district officials wanted the engineers to conduct an additional pumping test on the property.

The point of the test, she said, is to verify that there would be no adverse impact on the aquifer at the current pumping threshold — something proponents of the project believed when Adena Springs, owned by Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach, first sought 13.2 million gallons a day.

This is the third extension St. Johns has approved for Adena Springs.

In a Dec. 29, 2011, letter, water district officials wanted Adena Springs to furnish the following:

* A clarification of how many wells were intended for the site.

* Details of how an aquifer performance test, designed to demonstrate how water flows through various parts of the aquifer, would be conducted.

* A list of all adjacent property owners located within a half-mile of each well, or within 400 feet of the boundaries of the 25,000-acre site.

* Resubmission of information about its computer analysis of the impact on the groundwater that could not be found with the original application.

Rand said all of that information has been supplied.

Once the results of the pump test are in, the district’s governing board should be on track to vote on the application early next spring.

Stronach’s vision was to introduce a self-contained cattle-harvesting operation with a maximum of 15,000 head of grass-fed beef cattle.

Stronach’s team has said the project would create as many as 150 new jobs in one of the most economically depressed pockets of Marion County.

Yet the project immediately ignited a controversy when the application was filed in December 2011.

Driven by the former Marion horseman’s desire to pump 13.2 million gallons a day, a coalition of alarmed environmental groups eventually lined up behind the advocacy of Bob Graham, the former Florida governor and U.S. senator

In July, Graham delivered a petition to Gov. Rick Scott featuring 15,000 signatures from people opposed to the project.

That umbrella group, known as the Florida Conservation Coalition, expressed concern about the effect on Silver Springs and included organizations such as Audubon Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, 1000 Friends of Florida, League of Women Voters, Sierra Club, St. Johns Riverkeeper, the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land.

A month later, Adena Springs revised its request to the current 5.3 million gallons per day.

While the 60 percent reduction could have been seen as a victory for environmentalists, criticism or suspicion of the project apparently has not wilted.

As of Oct. 18, according to St. Johns’ website, 981 people had signed an online petition opposing the permit. The petition’s language argues that Adena Springs’ application “will be the end of Florida’s most iconic free flowing spring.”

That number of signers was up from 915 on Aug. 21, the day before Adena Springs announced the lowered withdrawal amount.

In October, water managers fielded 775 pages of standardized — and often repetitive — emails from members of environmental groups to St. Johns Governing Board Chairman Lad Daniels and the other governors.

The bulk of those letters were from people in Florida, but some arrived from folks as far away as California, Washington state and Vermont.

As recently as last week, St. Johns officials were still posting the complaints.

“Even Mr. Stronach must understand that the water belongs to all of the citizens, and should not become just another commodity for increasing his own wealth,” wrote Susan Woods, an environmental activist from Ocala.